Archive for the ‘Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’ Category

With all due respect to the Republican presidential hopefuls who debated last night, perhaps the best argument for keeping the Democrats out of power next November is the brazenly irresponsible way they handle national security issues: behaving as if the major threat to our national well-being is President Bush, not the jihadists, and putting the political agenda of Turkey-bashing ethnic lobbies and the hard left of the Democratic Party ahead of the war effort.

Exhibit number one is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who suffered twin embarrassments last week: In one instance, Democrats, under pressure from left-wing bloggers and the ACLU, tried to bring to the floor legislation updating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would have crippled the ability of our intelligence agencies to monitor al Qaeda and other foreign terrorist groups. They were forced to pull that bill from the floor. In the second instance, a mini-revolt among Democrats forced Mrs. Pelosi to remove from the floor the Armenia genocide resolution that could do grave damage to Washington’s relations with a key NATO ally, Turkey — which is critically important in resupplying the 160,000-plus U.S. troops in Iraq.

Last week we editorialized against both of these irresponsible pieces of legislation….

FORT MEADE, Md. – President Bush said Wednesday that a law hastily passed in August to temporarily give the government more power to eavesdrop without warrants on foreign terror suspects must be made permanent and expanded.

If this doesn’t happen, Bush said, “Our national security professionals will lose critical tools they need to protect our country.”

“Without these tools, it will be harder to figure out what our enemies are doing to train, recruit and infiltrate operatives into America,” he said on a visit to the super-secret National Security Agency’s headquarters in suburban Fort Meade, Md. “Without these tools, our country will be much more vulnerable to attack.”